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Chinese Boiled Peanuts Recipe

Yield: 8

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: varies

Alongside fire-roasted chestnuts, Boiled Chinese Peanuts are sold as cheap street food in China. It’s a cold-weather thing, and I know I’m posting this recipe in the dead heat of the summer, but I... (read more)

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Alongside fire-roasted chestnuts, Boiled Chinese Peanuts are sold as cheap street food in China. It’s a cold-weather thing, and I know I’m posting this recipe in the dead heat of the summer, but I am missing real Chinese food….a little nostalgic for humble eats.

Raw peanuts are boiled in water with cinnamon sticks, star anise, garlic cloves and a little salt. Even though there’s no sugar in the mix, you’ll get a molasses-like sweetness just from boiling the peanuts (even if you add NO spices!)

Star Anise and cinnamon will add complex flavors, liquorice-like (though please don’t let that scare you – it is NOTHING like black liquorice), rich and sweet-smelling. If you’re a chile-nut, go ahead and add a couple of dried red chiles into the pot.

3 sticks of cinnamon, 3 star anise, 3 cloves of garlic, 3 tablespoons of kosher salt. If you’ve got really good quality cinnamon sticks, just use one or two. I had to use 3 sticks, well….because I’m cheap and bought a lower quality of cassia bark.

There are 4 ways you can cook this:

No soak + pressure cooker for 60 minutes

No soak + slow cooker all day

No soak + boil on stove for 4 hours

Overnight soak + boil on stove 1 hour

How to cook Chinese Boiled Peanuts

Step 1: Wash the raw peanuts
Give them a good rinse. Pick out any peanuts that just don’t look right, twigs, roots, etc.

Step 2: Add in seasonings & water

Step 3: Weigh down the peanuts
Raw peanuts float to the top of the water, so to make sure that they cook evenly, I like to add a plate into the pot to submerge the peanuts.

Step 4: Cook
I am using a pressure cooker (60 minutes under high pressure), but you can use a slow cooker (high for 6-8 hours) or boil on stove (bring to boil, cover and simmer on low for 3-4 hours)

So happy to come across this recipe! Reminds me of my childhood.
I soaked my peanuts, and after an hour they were done, but I felt like it lacked the flavor I was longing for. It made me wonder if cooking for 3 hours unsoaked would taste different? I will try next time.
In the end, all is well. The next day, my chilled peanuts were perfect. The anise flavor was more prominent. Perfect! Thanks for posting.